Some Useful Organizational Tools

When life continues to get busier and busier it can be difficult to keep track of upcoming travel events, contacting clients, staying up to date with coworkers and there’s only so many Post-it notes that will fit on the outside of your desktop. So, we thought it would be fun to share with you some ways we try and stay organized and on top of upcoming events.

Communication. When you’re on the road and in and out of the office with multiple things coming up, it can be tough to schedule a face to face meeting with co-workers and staff in regards of upcoming auctions or events. But this doesn’t mean all communication is lost. There are many communication programs out there to easily connect your team.

Two such programs we use are Skype and Slack.

Many of you I’m sure have heard of Skype, probably used it too. Skype is a tool we use daily as a mode of communication between individual team members.

Slack may be new to you, it was new to me up until a few months ago, but it’s a great way to communicate with multiple team members on the same issue. This allows all team members to be up to date with any new system upgrade, client relations or water cooler jokes.

Both Skype and Slack are available on Android and Apple systems.

Travel a lot? We definitely do, especially in January and February during heavy convention season. The four of us could be in four completely different states/province across North America. For this, we use TripIt. It’s a great tool to not only keep track of your own travel itinerary but your co-workers as well.

From there, you can add notes, exact travel dates. There is also a ‘Share’ option which allows you to share your travel itinerary with your co-workers letting them know where you’ll be.

Download the App to have even easier access to your plans, this is very advantageous when your looking for your connecting flight.

CRM. A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is used to manage business relationships allowing you to keep on top of clientele, industry partners, and much more. There are MANY CRM systems to choose from and it can be a bit overwhelming. It all depends on exactly what you want to use it for. Some CRMs can be a bit complicated so make sure you do your research before signing up.

The CRM I am most familiar with is Contactually. Why did I choose Contactually? It’s clean, easy to use, straightforward and there customer support is outstanding. If I have any problems or questions their live chat is quick and their staff is very friendly, they’ll even make calls if needed.

You can also use it for sales funnels as an auctioneer to get new clients or keep continued clients, the possibilities are endless.

These are just some things we use at Global Auction Guide to stay connected within our company and keep organized. Hopefully it has given you some ideas, what works for one person may not work for another.